Play Like A Girl

By Ja’Bria Laster | Published April 10, 2023

Play Like a Girl returns for a second year to discuss the value of gender equality in athletics, as well as what it means to be a woman in sports.

The event, organized and hosted by Brianna Shaw, SAAC Vice President, featured three motivating panelists with diverse backgrounds in coaching and athletic training.

Danielle Todman, head coach of Kean’s men’s and women’s cross country teams; Amanda Martin, assistant coach for the South Jersey Aquatics and Brianna Lee, assistant managing director of sports medicines at Kean University.

Shaw organized Play Like a Girl to address diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to discuss gender equality, sports, and women’s stories. Shaw found that women are often devalued or belittled when it comes to sports. The conversation, geared to the three panelists, was about equality and sports. Taking steps towards recognizing the leaps and bounds the women before us took, so that future athletes could follow in that path. 

Ensuring that women’s stories are heard and valued, Play Like a Girl makes sure that is the number one priority so that other women can feel comfortable and talk about their passions to help them strive harder to meet their goals. 

“To be a woman of sports is to understand that you’re history makers,” Todman said. “History has been made by you sitting in this room, and history will continue to be made as you progress. You are the foundation, you are the root of which things grow.” 

Todman, Buffalo University alumni was a member of the track and field team where she received all patriot league second-team honors, and competed for the U.S. Virgin Islands in powerlifting.

Todman became the coach for Kean’s cross-country team, which had been dormant for about 16 years. Kean’s women’s cross-country and track team has grown expeditiously, from 11 players last year, to 32 players this year, and about 46 players estimated for next year. 

When you think about the history of athletic women, because of what they’ve overcome in regards to being a woman in sports and how impactful it was for them, women athletes today can now showcase their talents more freely.

Martin, a 13-time division one all-American who competed in the Olympic trials, is also in the Southern Illinois Hall of Fame for being the first woman in national history for women’s swimming, and also completed 3 iron mans.

The biggest barrier to women in sports is a collective of issues. Lack of education in sports, ignorance, lack of respect for women, and even less exposure to women on national television says the panelists. 

“There is a perception that women are not that fun and as exciting as the men when it comes to watching sports,” Martin said. “Speaking from a woman’s point of view, we could provide just as much entertainment as the men in sports.

In most of the professional roles in the athletic field such as athletic trainers, athletic coaches, and athletic directors, you may often assume men are in charge, but that is not always the case. The growth of females in the athletic professional field has expanded much more than what it used to be back in the day. 

“My experience as a female athletic trainer here at Kean has been extremely fortunate because in each setting I was a part of, the majority of the athletic training staff were female,” Lee said. “When I was a student at Westchester, I was taught by 5 wonderful women cultivating a movement for the women in the athletic training world.”

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